Conservatives, including GOP strategist Karl Rove, criticized the ad as a not-so-thinly veiled endorsement of the federal government’s auto industry bailouts. Others questioned basing a story of economic resurgence in a city that remains in fiscal disarray, with a $200 million budget deficit and cash flow concerns that have it fending off a state takeover.

But is it political? That depends on who you ask.

“I can’t stop anybody from associating themselves with a message, but it was not intended to be any type of political overture on our part,” Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne told WJR-AM in Detroit. “You know, we’re just an ingredient of a big machine here in this country that makes us go on.

Let’s be clear..the only folks making this political were Fox, et al, because they hate having thier own failed predictions paraded around in front of them. It causes them physical pain to have to see physical evidence of their failed ideology. They consider such graphic evidence of such epic “failures”, what rational folks simply call “government occasionally doing something right”, to be dang near to physical assault as it causes so much cognitive dissonance.

Update: Mr. Eastwood speaks up for himself, as per.

Speaking to Ron Mitchell, a producer at Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” Eastwood asserted, “I am certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama. It was meant to be a message … just about job growth and the spirit of America. I think all politicians will agree with it.”

Eastwood, who served as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, in the 1980s, added that he is “not supporting any politician at this time” but noted that, if Obama or any other politician “want to run with the spirit of that ad, go for it.”

In the ad — dubbed “Halftime in America” — Eastwood extols the resiliency of the American spirit — as exemplified by the auto industry’s efforts to bounce back from its financial woes.

“This country can’t be knocked out with one punch, we get right back up again,” Eastwood growls in the ad.

This was somehow interpreted by some — notably among them, former Bush administration senior adviser Karl Rove — as a show of support for President Barack Obama and the auto-industry bailout.

Declaring himself “offended” by the ad during a Fox News segment, Rove opined that the ad was “a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics.”

Hamhead also found out some way to be offended by the spirit of the ad, and vowed to spend the $100,000,000 or so he’s raised to kill that spirit of growth and togetherness that might otherwise raise this country up again.